Assassin’s Breed presents Harold Pinter’s masterpiece The Birthday Party, directed by Martin Henry.

Venue: Salle Dublin, Rue de Dublin 13, Bruxelles, Belgique

Dates:
20.00, Wednesday Jan 7th, 2026
2030 Thursday Jan 8th
20.00 Saturday Jan 10th

Tickets at BilletWeb

Pinter’s first full-length play got a rough ride from audience and critics alike, closing after only eight shows. It was rescued from obscurity by legendary theatre critic Harold Hobson’s review the following Sunday: ‘…Pinter, on the evidence of his work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London … Mr Pinter and The Birthday Party… will be heard of again. Make a note of their names.’

The first of what came to be called ‘Comedies of Menace’, The Birthday Party sets out the stall of themes, obsessions and style, which Pinter continued to explore throughout his writing career, in a voice sufficiently original to coin the word ‘Pinteresque’ and ultimately to win him both the Legion D’Honeur and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Set in a seaside boarding house somewhere on the south coast of England, the play tracks the psychological disintegration of struggling musician Stanley. He lives in some sort of balance with the irrepressible Meg and the laid-back Petey before two men with shadowy connections to his past arrive. Both Stanley and their neighbour Lulu will never be the same again. In a world in which we now have to struggle with ‘truth’, ‘post-truth’ and outright ‘fake news’, Pinter’s examination of the threatening ambiguities of language and the fragile ‘certainties’ of self-identity have never seemed more prescient and topical. Who can one trust…?

Post expires on Sunday January 11th, 2026